Statements
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The chair of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has warned that many participants in the legal system are likely to be “resistant to change” when the commission hands down recommendations in December.
Speaking to a conference of lawyers in Sydney yesterday, Justice Peter McClellan said “our criminal justice system is designed so that the trial is effectively a contest between the state and the accused, from which there emerges a winner and a loser”, deterring survivors from seeking justice for fear of “merely [being] a player in a sophisticated lawyers’ game”. McLellan said the commission is considering a nationwide adoption of Queensland’s law against persistent sexual abuse, which frees survivors from having to recall specific traumatic episodes.
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Alex McKinnon, The Saturday Paper